How I plan to write my novel

I’ve dreamed of writing a novel for as long as I can remember, but it’s still no more tangible than a dream.

I began the year with a commitment to start working on my novel.

Six months went by and all I had were a few pages of handwritten notes.

I decided I needed to make some changes in my life and wrote a series of posts on how I’d make the time and space to become a committed novelist.

I made some progress. My accountability group helped motivate me to set weekly goals. My research helped me come up with some ideas for content. Some online novel-writing classes inspired me to create character backstories, identify sources of conflict, and even sketch out a rough outline.

But ten months into the year, I still hadn’t written a single word of the actual novel.

Instead, the more research I did and courses I took, the longer my list of prerequisites became:

• Come up with a title
• Develop more characters and backstories
• Expand my outline
• Do more research
• Read books in my genre
• And on and on . . .

I’ve told myself that the more I plan ahead, the more likely I’ll be to write a good novel.

But the truth is, at this point, the more I plan, the less likely I am to write a novel at all.

There comes a point where planning is just another form of procrastination. As long as I keep planning, I can tell people, “I’m going to write a novel,” then fantasize about great it will be when it’s done. I don’t have to worry about failure.

But what if I write it and people don’t like it?

The answer is in the post I wrote at the beginning of the year:

I don’t want to write a novel for a grade or money or praise or out of feelings of obligation and guilt. I don’t want this to be another vehicle for people-pleasing.

I want to experience what it’s like to create a story that unfolds over 200 or 300 pages or more. I want to get to know my characters as well as I know some of my friends . . . I want to know what it feels like to see the finished work and be able to say, “I did that.”

That was my intention in January, yet somewhere along the way, I forgot: this novel is for me.

That’s it. No more planning. Next month, November, I’m going to write my first draft.

And if history is any indicator, at least half a million people will join me in that effort.

Every November since 1999, a growing number of writers have signed up for an event called “NaNoWriMo” or “National Novel Writing Month.” The rules are simple: between November 1 and November 30, participants must write at least 50,000 words to complete a draft of a novel.

Everyone who achieves the target word count is a winner.

However, of those who sign up, only about 10-15% achieve their goal each year.

It seems the majority is with me: we’re good at setting goals, but we’re even better at putting them off. There are even songs about it. Creedence Clearwater Revival gave us “Someday Never Comes.” The Bears sang, “The Best Laid Plans (never get laid).”

By November 30, my theme song will be, “We Are the Champions.”